The Essense of Addiction article is great!

[Th1onein]

It is just absolutely amazing what we are doing to our future, and to the future of our children, in this country. Not only are we wasting energy that will soon become scarce, we have completely buried our heads in the sand when it comes to looking for alternative energy sources. Stupid, stupid, because sooner than later, we are sure as hell going to need them. And, the rest of the world seems to have a better picture of this than we do. THEY are making plans. And WE are not, for this eventuality.

Because of this single fact, alone, we might be dooming ourselves to becoming a third world country, but what is worse is that, when we do become a country on the threshold of a third world, we will have, hehind us, a history of having been one of the most ruthless countries in the world.......

After all, we attacked one of the most helpless countries in the world, because we wanted something from it. We lied, made excuses--all of which are obvious to the rest of the world (and most of us here), even if they are not obvious to our current psychotic rulers.

When we become financially devastated as a country, like Iraq was, when we invaded it (after twelve years of sanctions), WHO will step forward to conquer us? Because someone will. After all, can we really expect the rest of the world to be kind, after what we have done?

[enough]

1. "dooming ourselves to becoming a third world country"

No "might be" about it, Th1oinein. That is exactly where we are headed.

Let me count the ways.

[Th1onein]

2. No. It doesn't HAVE to be that way. Yet.

We must turn a corner, and become more conscious of what our world is all about--the realities of this world, instead of how we WANT it to be.

And, yes, when we begin to run out of oil there will be people in this world who are assholes, and who think that they can get away with waging war to get what they want.

But I hope that the majority of the people in this world, and especially in this country, see that there is a better way. Yes, the world as we know it will begin to crumble around us, as we run out of fossil fuel, and yes, there might be a steep hill that we will either climb over, or fall over, but it is up to us, each and together, to make that landing as soft as possible.

Until we begin to work together, and realize that we must all join together to reach a new paradigm of energy generation and consumption, we are lost.

I firmly believe that this is the test of whether mankind will survive, or not.